Tuesday 7 October 2008

THE TRAFFIC WARDENS' ARMS Part 4

Sharon hated Intimacy Reductionism paintings and hung none on her walls. She preferred the images of crane flies hovering over spray-painted representations of Martian landscapes, bought from a Polish mail order catalogue. She glued patches of red glitter to these weird posters and nail them to her bedroom’s ceiling and walls. Her bedroom housed her collection of Elvis Presley CDs, films and memorabilia. Ensconced in there, she propped her head on heart-shaped pillows watching Elvis movies in bed with boxes of heart-shaped chocolates. The chocolates she consumed released sugar in her bloodstream as incense burned in an Elvis incense-holder and her fingers played with wigs rescued from the recent fire in the tunnel. It beat wiping floors.

Gulliver spent all week papering his lounge and bedroom. Now they were finished, he surveyed his handiwork with pride. He’d done a first-class job. Each piece hung perfectly straight and matching with invisible seams and no bubbles. It looked exactly as if thousands of sliced cucumbers were all over the rooms from floor to ceiling. An incredible effect—an inedible effect, too, he chortled to himself smugly, putting away his papering scissors and wiping paste from his hands. How would a grocer react to his environment? He wondered. Maybe he could write to the local paper asking for their feedback.
Suddenly, Gulliver was racked with pain of an extreme, face-whitening nature as arthritis afflicted his hands and arms.
‘It serves me right for being excessively self-congratulatory.’ Gulliver said, immediately engulfed by a need to be self-punishing.

The Traffic Wardens’ Arms public house, on the Kafka estate, was the favourite local of the neighbourhood’s traffic wardens. They drunk there together in, often uniformed, clusters, verbally attacking absentees with the malicious side of human nature—made all the more conspicuous with alcohol—that they all pretended did not exist when it was Christmas time. Vi Olation, the pub’s landlady, decorated the interior in drab grey shades, suiting the anonymous looking traffic wardens down to the ground, which is where they patrolled, their hungry eyes darting and their tongues dribbling at the prospect of their pens writing out tickets. Vi looked ten years older than her thirty-seven years. When she was seventeen, she’d married an impotent traffic warden from Chelmsford, but the following year he’d left her a widow after being crushed to death by a lorry. She’d moved and opened the pub with the payout from his life insurance, also setting up a charity to sponsor youngsters who were keen on becoming traffic wardens. Vi soon established a reputation with the traffic wardens’ community as a friendly hostess, who shared their views on inner-city parking. It seemed she was just the ticket.
Gulliver, fancying a pint, remembered it was quiz night at the Traffic Wardens’ Arms that night. So, he took himself down there, arriving soon after setting off due to his close proximity to his destination. Entering the pub, he exchanged greetings with dozens of the faces he knew so well. He ordered beer for himself and several of his uniformed pals, slapping his back and chortling upon his arrival. Tom suggested he join their team for the quiz and, after several insincere attempts to refuse on the grounds of false modesty, Gulliver accepted. He made up a team of five, taking his seat as Vi came round the tables handing out paper for answer sheets.
Looking round, Gulliver saw the pub was packed. There were eight participating teams readying themselves for the quiz. The quizmaster, reputedly sleeping with Vi, was a retired traffic warden called Ted Switch. He wore a neck brace and had a rasping voice that laboured his slow delivery of the questions.
TO READ THE TRAFFIC WARDENS ARMS' IN ITS ENTIRETY VISIT:
http://ambulant-literature.org.uk

1 comment:

  1. Surely now Vi Olation becomes the only possible name for a pub landlady. The more you write the more you face the problem of 'plot structure' - the picture you are painting is very enjoyable!! Keep it up!
    Robert

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